Buck, Like Gardner, Says No To Covering Pre-Existing Conditions

This week, Republican U.S. Senate candidate-turned CD-4 primary contender Ken Buck released his "plan" for what to do about health care once the historic calamity and grave injustice that is Obamacare (hopefully we hammed that up sufficiently) is repealed. Buck's three-page plan, with large pictures on two pages, doesn't reveal much in the way of a functional replacement for the Affordable Care Act's reforms. In fact, under the section titled "Deregulating the Insurance Market," Buck says one of the biggest changes Obamacare brought to the health insurance system isn't needed at all:

Allowing insurance to be purchased across state lines will increase competition and lower costs. But doing so requires the federal government to repeal coverage mandates that require most plans to offer the same services. Also, repealing the “guaranteed issue” mandate in Obamacare, which forces insurers to provide insurance to anyone regardless of their risk level, would lower premium costs. [Pols emphasis]

This is the nice way of saying exactly what now-U.S. Senate candidate Cory Gardnerbluntly concurs with in the video above: coverage of pre-existing conditions should not be part of health care reform. As a substitute, Buck calls for expansion of state high-risk pools, and suggests individuals buy insurance against "health status changes." High-risk pools are not new, but persistent issues with very high costs and waiting periods make them an unpopular last resort–a problem that needed to be solved by reforming the system.

Polling consistently shows that the ACA's guaranteed issue mandate is one of the most popular, and also least publicly understood, parts of the new law. This despite the same polling consistently showing public discontent with "Obamacare" as a whole:

[R]oughly four in ten adults overall, and about half of the uninsured, are not aware that the law provides financial help to low- and moderate-income Americans to help them purchase coverage, gives states the options of expanding their Medicaid programs, and prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions.

Bottom line: flatly rejecting one of Obamacare's most popular provisions won't hurt Buck in his CD-4 primary, which is all about who can out-conservative the pack in front of an unquestioning and deeply radicalized rural Republican base. But with the playing field over the ACA shifting back toward Democrats as a belated, longsuffering, but increasingly undeniable success story begins to emerge, we believe that this blunt rejection of such a basic and popular tenet of reform could seriously harm Cory Gardner–especially if his campaign continues making Obamacare his central campaign issue.

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Preexisting conditions were covered in Colorado before Obamacare. Pretending otherwise is dishonest.

Because it was already covered, there was no need for federal intervention.

The question was not asked whether anyone was in support of ending the Colorado system of covering preexisting conditions, so taking their answers to mean that preexisting conditions should not be covered in not honest.

Before Obamacare Pre-existing Conditions Were Not Covered at Affordable Rates.

I have members of my immediate family who have and will have for the remainder of their lives significant pre-existing conditions. Sure you could purchase insurance even with those conditions before Obamacare but at much higher rates than other people unless you had insurance through your employer. The ides that everything was ok for those with pre-existing conditions before Obamacare simply isn't true.

I'm not sure which insurance you're referring to: private or or risk-pool. Prior to the ACA it was perfectly legal for a private insurer to refuse to even issue a policy to somone with a pre-existing condition. These people were left with two choices: go on CoverColorado (better than nothing but expensive) or go without insurance.

Pre-existing conditions were not automatically covered in Colorado before the ACA reformed benefits nationawide.

When I did benefit interpretation for a major HMO in the early 1990s one of the esiest ways to deny a claim was the pre-existing conditions exclusion. The only group I recall that did not have that exclusion was a special plan we offered to the senior executives of our largest employer group.

As usual, AC you have no idea what you're talking about. The private insurance market was the fussiest of all. I was once turned down for an affordable plan because I had been taking prescription allergy drugs. Special coverage for those with moderate to serious pre-existing conditions, when available, came with a huge price tag before ACA. But I don't think you're delusional. Just another lying rightie SOB.

Being the craven coward you are you have never answered if you think people with pre-existing conditions such as myself should have access to affordable health insurance. This is a bullshit point your floundering with. Gardner is going to get absolutely reamed on his opposition to allowing the masses to participate in affordable health insurance programs and your petty technicalities don't mean squat.

Prior to the ACA, Colorado didn't have guaranteed issues, insurance companies could refuse to issue coverage to someone with a pre-existing conditions. The people who were deemed uninsurable could either go on CoverColorado–a high-risk pool–or go without coverage.

Mr. Buck can get away with opposing insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions but it is significant he hides his policy position through veiled language. That indicates he understands how out-of-touch his position is, even with voters in the 4th CD. As Coloradopols stated, he just needs to win the extreme right wing base to carry the day at the 4th CD Assembly and then its off to Wahsington as a congressman.

Mr. Gardner on the other hand has a real problem brewing for him and again it is self-inflicted. He has been bluntly and outspokenly against insuring those with pre-existing conditions but now he has to appeal to an audience of voters that approves of coverage for those people. Will he flip-flop again like he did on abortion and then only days ago flip-flopped back to reassure the pro-life movement he is really pro-life even though he isn't any more, or is it the other way around? Its hard to tell.

And the "pre-existing conditions" covered by CoverColorado were narrowly defined. I think cancer, multiple sclerosis, maybe 3 or 4 other severe conditions. You had something not on that short list, you were S O L.

Having known someone who had no choice but to go on CoverColorado, I'm fairly familiar with it. I'm also aware that it was also ungodly expensive, if you qualified, and premiums seemed to increase every year.

High-risk pools are not a good model for covering the people the insurance companies don't want–guaranteed issue or single-payer are far better alternatives.

High-risk health plans are very expensive for your state to operate. And, because of that, the high-risk pool in your state will most likely charge you more than the cost of buying traditional individual health insurance. Typically, high-risk pools offer four to eight health plans through a contract between your state and one or more private health insurance companies.

Depending on the state, your monthly premium for a high-risk health plan will be 125% to 200% of the premium of a similar private plan – similar to the health plan that denied you coverage. For example, if a traditional plan for an individual costs $500 each month, in California you may have to pay $625 for the high-risk plan (125% rate), in West Virginia $750 for the high-risk plan (150% rate), and in Maryland $1000 for the high-risk plan ($1000).

In most states with high-risk pools, the insurance company also can vary the cost of your premium based on your personal characteristics, such as age, gender, smoking status, where you live in the state, and your health status. They cannot deny you coverage if you have a health problem, but they can charge you a higher premium!

In addition to your monthly premium, you will also be responsible for out-of-pocket expenses, such as annual deductibles, copayments, and co-insurance. You can expect to have an annual deductible of at least $500, but in many states the deductible may be between $1000 and $3000.

Are High-Risk Pools a Good Idea?

A high-risk pool can be very helpful if you have a pre-existing condition, have been denied the ability to enroll in a health plan, and can afford to pay the monthly premiums. Since some states also provide financial help with premiums, a high-risk pool can act as a safety net if you cannot afford to buy a private health plan.

However, there are some significant problems with high-risk pools. Although several million people in the 35 states with high-risk pools may be eligible to participate, actual enrollment – at about 190,000 – has been very low. This is mainly due to the high cost of the premiums and yearly out-of-pocket costs – many people cannot afford to purchase coverage through a high-risk pool.

My wife has asthma which is treated with a steroid and inhalers and she was denied coverage by three different insurance companies during the Golden Era that the wanna be rich kid wants us to accept. I'm pretty sure she wasn't singled out individually for denied coverage. I am so thankful that the Affordable Care Act helps people deal with their conditions in a humane way. It's the Christian thing to do.

Ha! Buck's plan is real joke. If he were serious about lowering premiums, he would have proposed that insurance companies only have to cover healthy customers. And that anyone filing a claim is immediately dropped from the policy. Then you'll really see premiums drop 1 or 2 of percentage points!

The 51st staters should love that proposal. Kenny — feel free to use it — you don't even need to give me any credit!

A citizen is a member of a group, with, one would think, at least a modicum of concern for the group as a whole. Even just a basic concern for another human being. You've admitted that's not true in your case. You're just a tool to make someone else a profit, in the vain hopes that some meager scraps from the 1% will somehow, someday, trickle down to you. To that end, there's no one you wouldn't be willing to deny, neglect, or send off to die.

The very definition of 'citizen' implies membership in a state. Your incompetence at arguing a point is astounding.

What is whacky is how quickly the right has reinvented itself into corporate anarchists, and how willingly the masses have gone along once riled up by gays, or guns, or Mexicans, or affordable healthcare, errr, I mean Stalinism.

Today's hijackers-of-the-Republican-Party, and their capitulating elected officials, have created a false history in which conservatism always meant, for example in this instance, non-allegiance to the United States. It's like Alice in Wonderland only the stakes are real.

I take comfort that it is invariablyidiots like this arguing the case for conservatives. (Or else the transparently slippery, arguing whatever one must for the ‘client’…). Can't put lipstick on batshit.

You are not a person…you are a sock puppet payed for by the corrutped winger gop/baggers…everything I have read by you is absolutly anti-American…anti-human…you are part of the problem, and you will lose…

If you hate the collectivists then you must really hate the pioneers who pooled their resources to build one room school houses and hire a school marm from back east to educate their children. They are the original American soclialsts. God bless their vision to organize their society for mutual benefitl. It worked then and it works now. We're better working together.

A couple of the counties in parts of Colorado which AC doesn't know exist( probably including Gardner's home county) still have rural electric and telephone coops.Remember conservatives opposed the REA and the TVA. Couple of times I've asked cons to name similar programs they've developed and sponsored. The silence is overwhelming.

Gardners (and mine) home county is served by Y-W Electric Association (thank you, FDR) and one of the best cooperative telephone associations on the planet, Plains Cooperative Telephone Association. (who accepted ARRA funds – that's code for 'stimulus' for our troll). In fact our home county, who voted 80% in favor of the formation of Dumphuckistan, is no stranger to federal handouts. In addition to the $547 million in federal farm subsidies we've received since 1995, here is the summary of stimulus fund recipients from ProPublica.

I always know when the IREA bills come out because my cell # is one number off. I start getting calls, mainly from people who sound elderly. Sometimes, even though my answering message sounds nothing like what you'd expect from your electric company, some elderly sounding person will leave me a detailed message about their issue. I always return the call to let the person know that they did not reach IREA and the correct number they need to do so. I can't stand the thought of some nice old man or lady thinking they are taking care of a problem when they're not.

All those barn raisings and husking bees and quilting bees were the very epitome of individual effort. AC is blinded by its ideology has never lived in farm or ranch country to know what does and has gone on there. To speak to a wingnutter the scenario you speak of for schools was just as relevant to churches.

Sorry but we are. The government is us. It is us governing through our democratically elected representatives. That's how our constitution set it up. The rest of the your drivel appears to have been taken from Coke commercials or something.

This idiot listens to that mark levin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FYI, for all, listen to this guy levin. I've got a hunch old carnivalle might not be a paid troll after all. His crap IS what levin spouts every day. levin's supposedly a constitutional lawyer, but this guy' s incredibly extreme. It's like anton scalia somehow got on SCOTUS. (Oh, oh, that happened.) You think fladen's a sociopath? He might be, but levin's fladen on steroids. You think old andrew's a mean spirited, petty, small ball playin' angry white extremist? Get a load of his mentor, levin.

I think they think it should be privatized/voucherized. Like medicare and everything else. The private sector always works so much more efficiently and better. You remember how the private sector came though with flying colors in Iraq and Afghanistan, saving tax payers tons of money? Oh wait. I must be thinking of another space time continuum.

What I don't get is why they keep insisting it's a matter of cost when everyone knows costs in countries with universal quality healthcare are half what ours are. So it isn't about cost. It's because they think healthcare should be just another commodity and if you can't afford decent health care, just like if you can't afford a good car or big house, you shouldn't have it. The same thing in their eyes. They so much don't want you to have it that they'd rather spend twice as much on it as we would if everybody could have it.

That's their ideology and it's way more important to them than the lives of real people are. If they're so pro-life you'd think providing people with universal quality healthcare, vital to human life, would be more important to them than their precious ideology. Don't have an abortion but if you're just a middle income loser don't expect to be able to afford to provide the best health care for the baby once the baby is born. Especially if the baby is inconsiderate enough to be born with health issues.

That's why I refuse to call these people pro-life. They are anything but. They are 100% for keeping the private insurer death panels. The ones that make all of their life and death decisions based strictly on whether you are sufficiently profitable. You can't blame the companies. That's what for profit companies are supposed to do. But that's why health coverage should not be treated as just another for profit commodity.

We need basic quality universal health care and for profit companies can sell extra bells and whistles. It works for every other modern industrialized country on the planet for half our cost.

I don't call them "pro-life". They're pro-birth. After that, the "ownership society" the President spoke of during the second campaign takes over. Need quality health care for that special needs child? You're on your own.

A Canadian official testifying before the US Congress pointed out that the pre-ACA cost was 45,000 lives a year. But hey, those dead people probably weren't Repugs, right, current-local-idiot-boy-troll? And if they don't agree with you, then they're better off dead, right? You are a total macaroon.

Studies don't support that the average person waits longer for care in countries that treat all their citizens than they do here. What they do support is the fact that in those countries the average citizen, not just a minority who can afford it or who are lucky enough to still have great employer coverage, get better quality care. Especially better than no routine care. How about all those Americans who never had to worry about waiting, except in the ER, because they had no access to healthcare as a routine option?

One more time, it's obviously not about costs or a waiting time with you people (not until you go bankrupt and the public picks up the tab is a pretty long wait time) because if that were the case you would have been pushing for universal coverage like the kind that costs other countries half as much as we spend for better outcomes a long time ago.

Benefits are being organized for a friend to cover what his low cost high deductible insurance doesn't who suffered a stroke out of the blue even though he's young, healthy and is very careful about healthy diet. Before ACA he would have owed a lot more.

In any other modern 21st century society, throwing benefits wouldn't be necessary and the cost for his care would be half what it is here in the first place without all those layers of private sector bureaucrats who add nothing but cost to our healthcare equation.

ACA doesn't come close to solving the problem but it still comes a lot closer than the GOTP repeal plan. Without ACA this young man would likely never be able to have any kind of affordable coverage again and wouldn't just need help with thousands but with hundreds of thousands if anything serious happened again. If enough v couldn't be raised he' have to lose everything before becoming eligible for any assistance. The entire process would cost the public much more than any costs connected with ACA and much more than the cost of 21st century, civilized healthcare.

We'd all be better off with universal single payer basic coverage from both a health perspective and a cost perspective but there's no way we would be better off with anything the GOTP proposes or with the pre-ACA system. You righties are both delusional and really mean.

Given that our librarian seems to be obsessed with cost you'd think he'd be able to comprehend that the 17% of our national GDP (and growing at double digit rates prior to ACA) we Americans expend on health care is more than the 11% of national GDP (remaining relatively flat) our neighbors to the north spend on their system. "The lines, the lines!!" is yet another Faux News talking point that doesn't hold up under the light of day. I have a lot of Canadian friends … I've yet to find one that thinks our system is one they'd "trade for".

From what I've seen of cost estimates from both sides one or two of those black plastic bombers we don't need anyway would cover the wholething and if you threw in a handful of F-22s or F-35s there'd be money left over. If you included a nuke powered missile or attack sub we could probably insure the world.

I'd still wager that the cost of a couple of those black plastic bombers we don't really need would cover the whole of a quality program and if you throw in a handful of F-22s or 35s there'd be money left over.A couple nuke powered missile or attack subs might cover the rest of the world that needed it. We're not sure you know how much the cost will be since you asked the question but didn't bother to post any data or a link to something besides the chain e-mails that keep wingers flapping.

AC, your comment "I get it. Republicans are capitalists. Democrats are socialists." proves that you don't get it. We are all capitalists, some less so than others.

Then to "Democrats think it is a right". This is correct. You follow with an incorrect statement "should be paid for by the state". You really have no understanding of the ACA, with most continuing to pay theri own premiums personally or via their capitalist employer. There is a complex premium support mechanism for those unable to pay.

(along those lines, if somebody wants to sell me a winning power ball ticket for the purchase price given at King Soopers, I can provide my phone number. I'm also willing to sell back my wife's non-winning tickets for the purchase price we paid – please let me know if the DNC will give her her money back 😉 )

You do realize how idiotic this new attempt at false equivalency is. Do you really think that it's right for a responsible insured person who survives cancer and then loses the job that provided insurance to never be able to get affordable new coverage again because of the pre-existng condition? That an infant should be uninsurable be due to being born with a pre-existing condition? Do yo really find the very idea of such people being able to have access to coverage for the rest of their lives as silly as the idea of ..ha, ha… taking out auto insurance after an accident or life insurance after a death?

I always thought of you as deluded but well meaning. Apparently you're neither. You really do, after careful consideration, believe that in the wealthiest nation on earth, though not in any other civilized nation in the 21st century, people should be and deserve to be denied access to health care if they are born with serious conditions or develop serious conditions or illnesses at any point in their lives. If your side ever gets its wish and we go back to that system, I hope you're feeling lucky for yourself and for your children. One bad break and you could find yourself or your children among those it would be silly to cover and you probably wouldn't be finding the very idea so funny then.

BC – Elloit is conflating two entriely different schemes. Auto insurance is a scheme where we join together to insure against a risk that we hope will never befall any of us. On the other hand, health "insurance" is a scheme where we join together to share the cost of something that all of us will use at one time or another.

We must take some responsibility for his ability to so easily engage in such a conflation. Led by our Neo-Liberal-In-Chief (if that is too obtuse, I am referring to President Obama), we have bought into the "meme" that we can solve the health care crisis through private, for profit, "health insurance."

One last point, AC and Elloit are sociopaths. They have no empathy for others. Therefore, your human interest arguments have no effect on them.

My point here is really basic: paying for stuff that already occurred, where there is no prior obligation to do so, is simply not insurance. Call it a transfer payment, call it assistance, call it something else. It however is NOT insurance.

Insurance covers things that have not yet happened but that MIGHT happen (exception being title insurance which covers things that have not been discovered but that already exist).

For merely pointing this out, as is typical on this site, I have been called a Koch sucker, spineless, and a sociopath. I am deeply saddened that there is no "free lunch in life" is so deeply traumatic and offensive to so many of you.

EF all you've proven is that you probably are indeed a graduate of law school and therefore a heartless priI**.Unless you've worn the uniform in combat don't talk to anyone about "free lunch" because that alone makes you a rider of the worst sort. Then quit your typical con/glibertarian I'm a victim here sniveling.

I do know very highly ethical and compassionate lawyers and I don't think it's fair to lump all those who don't serve in the military together as free lunchers. Many serve in other ways. And to be fair, while our troops serving in recent wars serve with honor and believe they are protecting us I don't believe they actually made us any safer or preserved any rights we were in danger of losing. In fact we lost quite a few over the Iraq war. We're indebted to the troops who served in Iraq for their honor, courage, sacrifice and intention of protecting us but not for anything as concrete as preserving our freedom.

Please note, I'm not saying any of this in defense of Fladen who hasn't said a single intelligent thing or professed a single admirable sentiment here for a very long time.

You seem to assume that the problem is people who choose not to buy insurance, then expect to be covered after they get sick. This ignores the common ways people who have paid for insurance for years find themselves uninsured but with a preexisting condition.

Before ACA this would happen if you developed a condition while insured by an employer, then lost that job and the insurance, if you were born with multiple birth defects, if your insurer dropped you because you were sick for long enough to reach a cap or if they simple decided you were no longer profitable and dropped you.

Oh and here's one. Few will remember former CD6 D candidate Bill Winter but those who volunteered on his campaign may remember that he become uninsurable with a preexisting condition by altruistically donating a kidney.

None of these situations is in any way comparable to not bothering to buy auto insurance until after an accident and expecting to be covered. You claim to be advocating only for personal responsibility when, in fact, you are mainly advocating for people who get sick and then lose insurance or who are born sick to be screwed because, though they or their parents have been perfectly responsible, they are not seen as profitable.

A civilized health care delivery system, such as all other modern industrialized countries have, removes the question of whether you are profitable enough to be allowed access to quality healthcare from the equation by providing basic quality health care in a context from which the profit motive has been removed, thus recognizing the sanctity of human life as something that should not be subject to a corporation's bottom line. What you advocate dismally fails to honor that sanctity. You'd think prolife would include life after birth as well.

Pretty sure, besides AC and you and Modster, the rest of us are interested in how to make healthcare affordable and accessible to all. This may come as surprise to you but we didn't come here to play a Fladen word game by Fladen determined rules with no relevance to improving our healthcare delivery system so that it works for all, including infants born with preexisting conditions and responsible adults who lose coverage after getting sick and finding themselves stuck with preexisting conditions.

If you're only here to score points in a semantics contest of your own devising, thanks but no thanks. If I want to play a game I'll play something fun.

Curmudgeon, you are embarassing yourself. Saying I am "Koch sucking" while "spineless" all because I DO NOT AGREE WITH YOU is doing your position little favor. My suggestion: realize that not everybody agrees with you and that does not make them bad people.

As for immigration, if I was going to pander to nativists I could have done it a long time ago. I prefer standing for what I believe in.

The cute little smiley face while vomiting comments essentially equating a child born with a serious illness to a car accident occurring prior to buying insurance isa new low.

Funny how all the alleged pro-lifers see no disconnect between professing the sanctity of life while insisting sick newborns babies should be viewed as pre-existing accidentsforhealth coverage purposesand findingit all so amusing.

There's definitely been a misunderstanding regarding my use of the term, "Koch-Sucker" towards Elliott. In no way was calling Elliot a Koch-Sucker intended as a homosexual slur, for two reasons: First, because I don't have an opinion of his sexuality; it's simply not my business. Second, no one's sexuality is anyone's business, so insulting someone by making reference to it would be absurd and bigoted. So, while his shrill protestations are comical, they're misguided (and, a blatant attempt at deflection). I wouldn't care if he was gay, but I'm more than willing to accept his assertion that he is not. His not being gay does not preclude his being a Koch-Sucker.

Calling Elliot a Koch-Sucker has nothing to do with his orientation. It has to do with what he does. Prostitutes do not do what they do because of their own sexual orientation; they do what they do in expectation of (or in return for) compensation for that act. Whether they receive sexual pleasure from that act is not a issue. In Elliott's case, that compensation is political capital; brownie points with those he wishes to impress; something to discuss at the next meeting, etc, etc, etc. He's willing to "sell" his intellectual honesty, human deceny, dignity, and self-respect in return for that political capital. Being a Koch-Sucker says nothing about someone's orientation. It speaks to what one is willing to do and who they're willing to do it for to get what they want. Whether they derive pleasure from it is really not the issue.

Besides, it's a great pun. One would think someone so enamored of their own wit would recognize that.

You are the one who chose to use a slur not me. You are the one who needs to live with the consequences. But you better believe that I and others will bring this up in the future. The fact that you are digging down deeper into your hole only worsens that for you.

Hey, should you be able to access healthcare after you survive cancer but your insurance policy drops you? Should you be able to access health care if you're a diabetic and your employer goes out of business? The difference in our philosophies is that your answer to these questions is yes. That's exactly how affordable access to health care should work. Health care is just another product and tough luck for people who have insurance, lose it and are then stuck with preexisting conditions, even if you come into the world as a newborn with a preexisting condition.

In your philosophy you will fight to the death for an embryo but let that embryo develop and be born with terrible defects and you will fight to the death for a healthcare system in which corporations control access to care and refuse to make healthcare available to that unprofitable baby. That's some screwed up philosophy.

Elliot, it is possible to apply for Social Security and Medicare based on a spouse's work record. What you posited above is silly. No one is arguing that point.

Please do some research on 1st world countries and healthcare. Stop digging this ideological hell hole taking you into a Hobbsian nightmare. You could get stuck there, and it is not a good place to be. At least give it an honest and private thought.

C'mon, Elliot. It is sophistry because you intend it to be so. Who do you think you are fooling? If, in fact, you are suggesting that children with birth defects should be denied coverage for the rest of their lives, then there are not enough bad names in the English language to call you.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, because if you REALLY feel that way, you are lower than whale shit.

Sophistry is the use of fallacious arguments, esp. with the intention of deceiving.

Here I am not the one who is hiding behind the notion that insuring for something that already occurred is insurance and not assistance. That would be you guys. So if there is sophistry here, it is coming from your end.

Only because it's not you. You're a hardass ONLY because everything's gone your way.

So far.

Believe me, when life blows up in your face, when one of your loved ones hits a bad patch, a family crisis hit where medical costs run into the stratosphere, "pre-existing conditions" and "eligibility" and "limits" won't offend you any more.

But………..if you're still the "libertarian" tough guy you perport to be here, you'll rationalize the ACA "was meant for the good ones like me".

Just so you know, The "professional/loving parent" multi tasking thing's something American women have been successfully executing since (and probably even before) female anesthetists were performing operations on United States Military Tuberculosis patients at Fitzimmons back in the late '30's.

If you're that tired, don't blog. Nobody cares why you can't keep up.

And stop whining again.

Maybe you should stop crying about how "mean" everybody treats you when you act like the selfish ayn rand acolyte you are, and get some preexisting coverage for being about the biggest whiner on the blog.

By the way, ryan has a NEW budget. Since you dodged the last one, albeit not without getting skewered for it, how about defending this one?

After all, it's the old libertarian "I got mine, you go fuck yourself" modern day repub legislation if I've ever seen it.

Nice try at logic there. The ACA doesn't require retroactive payment for the costs associated with a pre-existing condition in the past. It means that pre-existing conditions don't keep someone from acquiring insurance for future costs incurred.

Car insurance won't do that. Neither will new health insurance plans under the ACA. As Ruthella said, it isn't retroactive and won't pay for past damages.

However, it will give people health coverage going forward; they don't have to suffer and die because of lack of access to healthcare.

I think you know all that, and are arguing for the sake of arguing, or just jerking chains, as Duke wrote. Maybe that is sophistry.

As far as the term "Koch-sucker", I find it vivid and descriptive of people pandering to Americans for Prosperity. Lenny Bruce said that "cocksucker" was a compliment, relating to any woman he would love or marry. He went to jail for saying it publiicly, though.

Much more of a heterosexual than homosexual practice. But you knew that, too.

BC, if you said I had game as a compliment that would be fine. The issue here is that Curmudgeon attempted to insult me by saying I engaged in the homosexual act of "Koch sucking". That means he finds homosexual activity particularly vile and well suited for use as an insult. Such an attitude is anti-homosexual and I am shocked that you all are being apologists for it.

Coming from a person who advocates for private corporate dearth panels for cancer survivors who lose coverage they've paid for for decades, leaving them uninsured and with preexisting conditions, I'll take your self righteous pearl clutching with all the seriousness it and you deserve.

Curmudgeon absolutely nailed it with your new title. If you can't see how appropriate it is, your "naivete" is going to commit you to being a consistant butt of jokes for the duration.

But I don't think the point was lost on you.

Look, you suck up to redleg candidates, initiatives, positions and red herrings when the timing's there. You know that. You consistently engage in chain jerking, petty arguments, and generally act like Felix Unger. You idolize ayn rand, support the koch 's ALEC campaigns, (remember Trayvon? I do.), and do the pissy, snooty, and irritating "only people that deserve insurance (like me) should get it".

Bottom line, you walked right into the title. It's yours. Best you stop whining about it and let it die a natural death.

Besides, it's that "funny as hell" moment that's only really funny if it's about the right guy.

Let's try another example to show the innanity of your point. John and Susie each get quotes for life insurance. It will be $300 a month for each to get $10 million in life insurance based upon their age/health. John and Susie take the paperwork with them, but do not sign it.

John that day goes to work. He is an engineer working at a power plant, but unfortunately an accident occurs that day and he is exposed to a lethal amount of radiation. Although fine at this minute, he has a 100% chance of dying in the next two weeks.

Susie's job is non-descript – she works at a cafe. Unfortunately, she works at the same cafe that Walter White from Breaking Bad just visited. And she likes Stevia….one thing leads to another and Susie accidentally ingests a lethal amount of ricin. Although fine this minute, she has less than 72 hours to live.

John and Susie each learn of their impending fates right after the above accidents occur. Should they each be able to execute the life insurance policies that previously mentioned at the same rate as before?

Under your logic: YES!

Under anybody rational's logic: HELL NO

This doesn't mean that we blame John/Susie for their fates. Or that we don't feel bad for them/want to help them out. But when you start insuring for things that already occured and that are known to the insuree, you aren't actually providing insurance. You are providing assistance/help/a gift/a transfer payment/etc.

No number of false equivalency examples will make your point less inane and morally bankrupt, your point being that cancer survivors who were dropped from their policies and very sick newborns are preexisting accidents and it's just as silly to offer them a means of access to affordable health care as it would be for a new auto insurance policy to cover damage to a previously wrecked car. Don't expect any number of examples to convert decent human beings to that point of view.

I'm glad for any children you may have in the future that, thanks to ACA and as long as you vultures don't manage to impose your just go ahead and die system, if they're born with devastating health problems they will have access to healthcare in spite of having such a heartless, selfish, mean spirited SOB for a father. That will be a separate issue. Let's hope the future also holds good coverage for mental health therapy.

MJ, I can care less that Curmudgeon is insulting me. What I care about is the double standard you all use on this page for remarks used to demean discriminated minorities. If a conservative called somebody a cock-sucker with an intent to insult them, you would all get up in arms. See your reactions to Hackstaff (photoshoped image usage) and Vicki Marble (ramblings about fried chicken).

At least with me, I'm consistent. I'll call people out regardless of their political affiliation.

Giant differences EF. Curmudgeon's insult was delivered here, where it may be read by a few dozen and it is an insult only to you, not to gays. The Hackstaff ad, which you most generously characterize as 'accidental' was intended to mislead voters. And, I do believe that Marble meant to insult Fields but really didn't think her remark would become widely known.

And I'm a lot less concerned about salty language than about about newborns and responsible people who have paid insurance premiums being kicked to the curb once they become preexisting accidents so it's a matter of proportion. Death by private insurer death panel is kind of a more serious consequence in my book than possible hurt feelings. I suppose Fladen could expire from excessive pearl clutching but I think it's more of a look over there tactic than real apoplectic shock.

The person who just got in to a car wreck should definitely be able to get insurance for his car. Of course, it will only cover things that happen to his car in the future. And the insurance company gets to set a coverage rate based on the car's condition, and the risk of the driver. But some tech company looking for a hiring edge could put together an offering for group car insurance that pools the risk of the company's drivers – probably with some risk-reducing incentives similar to the tobacco provision in ACA coverage. That's no different from how we got to employer based health care… Should it become a Federal mandate? Probably not – driving isn't quite the same as living.

And those two unfortunates who just got quoted on life insurance? As individuals, we would make the excuse that the insurance company can't cover the risk of individuals. But if those two individuals were in open enrollment for their companies then they would not be denied whatever basic life insurance policy was offered by the company (assuming they also lived long enough to see the coverage start…).

What do both of these have in common, and different from ACA coverage? Risk pools. The ACA risk pools are, effectively, those of fifty large companies. In a large company, insurance agencies don't look much at individual cases – the company can't just throw an employer-insured person off of a plan, and they don't get to reject the person from the plan, either. The corporate rate for insurance might go up slightly the year after a large number of high-expense people come on-board – the same as the ACA.

Elliot wants to make ACA coverage look like it's a bunch of individual policies, just like car and life insurance – but, to the insurance company actuaries, the ACA has created large pools of people to spread the risk.

Yes, this. The analogy also fails because we've already been bearing the costs of the uninsured collectively (in addition to the inhumanity of denying life-saving medical care to those who are simply unlucky), and these costs are higher than they need to be when everyone is able to access preventative care. In addition, those who are/were covered by employer-provided health care were able to take advantage of a risk pool even if their health status was poor. And even if they chose to engage in unhealthy behaviors such as smoking. My sister, a breast-cancer survivor from the age of 38, was uninsurable on the individual market (what was offered to her specifically denied ANY type of cancer screening or treatment even though her statistical risk of reoccurrence for breast cancer some 15+ years later is low and her risk of, say, skin cancer, is unrelated). What was 'available' was completely unaffordable. Yet she's healthier than most any 55-something I know — fit, active, vegetarian for decades. Her crime was getting cancer at a young age, getting divorced and losing her husband's group coverage, and being a small businessperson.

Let's go through your points Phoenix
1) Re: Car Insurance: "Of course, it will only cover things that happen to his car in the future" – Except that flies in the face of the ACA. Preexisting conditions ARE covered. So if you want to attack my analogy you have to say that it is appropriate to have car insurance which covers preexistin accidents.

2) Re: Life insurance – at least you acknowledge that you are ok with John/Susie signing multi-million dollar policies right after they come down with immeniently fatal conditions. Hopefully you will be able to be our insurer of life insurance in the future.

So you think nobody is noticing your avoiding like the plague any response to whether sick newborns, born as preexisting "accidents", or cancer patients who lost their insurance, either due to job loss or just being dropped and become preexisting "accidents", should have any affordable means of becoming insured and having access to care again without losing everything? Ummm… we're noticing.

One more time, people who lose insurance while sick aren't car wrecks. Wanting coverage for your newborn with cerebral palsy isn't at all akin to wanting to hit the life insurance jackpot with one after the fact payment for the preexisting corpse.

You can throw out as many of these false analogies as you want. That won't make them any more valid or distract from your refusal to say whether you really believe that once the embryo you say you care for so deeply becomes a damaged goods child on the other side of the birth canal, it becomes a preexisting "accident" for whom it would be silly (ha ha ha, cute smiley face) to provide any means of affordable access to the best care.

again you forget that I only chose to debate a limited point; namy what is insurance. If you want to have discussion over whether we should obliged to provide assistance to the people you mentioned, that would be a different issue

Translation — I'm debating the most narrow of points (badly) because I have no leg to stand on. And I've already lost anyhow because we are providing assistance to the people BC mentioned now. It's called the ACA.

But of course Elliot is with those who advocate for repealing ACA so I'm sure he'd like to share his views on either returning to the pre-ACA system or, if that's not what he wants, on what kind of system he'd like to see replace it. More likely he'll just stick to his self imposed narrow vision semantic game guns to avoid any such discussion on the real subject; health care access in the US.

PS. Sorry if I "forgot" that this is just an exercise in semantics for you. Please excuse me for not giving a damn about awarding you points within the parameters you set, as if for word game.

Most of us are concerned with the larger question of creating a healthcare system that doesn't treat newborns and sick people like "accidents" or damaged cars. A system that isn't the major cause of bankruptcy in our nation, with most of those going bankrupt having insurance. A system that doesn't cost twice what other countries' systems cost that cover all of their people much better than we cover most of ours. A system that doesn't make us the only modern industrialized country on the planet where going bankrupt over a health issue is even a possibility.

If you prefer to play look over there semantic games instead of addressing the real issues, please know that nobody else gives a damn about your rules. We actually care about the consequences for real people including newborns and responsible people who have paid for premiums all their lives and then get kicked to the curb.

So don't expect any more respect than you are receiving no matter how well you think you're playing. We have far more serious concerns than playing your little game according to your little rules with your little parameters. You are only demonstrating how small you have had to become to continue to delude yourself that you can advocate the positions you advocate as either a sensible person or a decent one.

Do tell. Please expand. Starting with what policies you support that would address putting in place an affordable health care delivery option for infants born with preexisting conditions and for those who lose their insurance with something on their medical record that a new insurance company would see as a preexisting condition.

During all the time you've spent opposing the solutions offered via ACA, surely you must have given some serious thought to alternative means that would work better. I'm sure you could throw something out there for discussion? It doesn't have to be fully fleshed out. Otherwise, why should anyone interested in real world solutions care about what you have to say?

What Eliot and other naysayers either don't understand or conveniently ignore is that nobody is getting anything for nothing with the pre-existing condition policies of ACA. The government doesn't set the rates, the insurance companies do. If they can't deny for pre-existing conditions, that's just built into the rates. You know this BC because you have been through the system. On the Exchange, you are quoted a rate according to your age. That rate was calculated by the actuaries to reflect the probability that you have a pre-existing condition considering how old you are. The companies aren't losing money because the insurance companies aren't giving a damned thing away for free.

So far Elliot is ignoring pretty much everything to concentrate on demonstrating his superior knowledge of the meaning of the word "insurance". Don't expect him to be interested. He said himself, he didn't come here to debate the issues. Nope. Not interested.

Elliot is trying to narrow the argument to something he can actually argue. The broader question remains. It will not go away. The modernity fairy's dust is out of the bag. Eventually the democratic ideology will win. The authoritarian, monarchical, corporate ones will not stand. A healthy, prosperous economy depends on a strong middle class. A top heavy economy will collapse.

The wealthy will always be with us. But, right now, the extremely wealthy are actually greedy raiders and incomers. This is like war.

Go ahead and answer (should be entertaining), but here's where I think that the REAL disagreement lies: These industrialized countries are not working from a capitalist model. They are looking at people's health as the "commons", the "common good", like clean air, clean water, right to be safe and private, basically all of the human rights declared in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 25 of same:

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

That is what the other industrialized countries of the world beleive in, and that is what the USA is finally taking steps towards. It doesn't matter a damn whether you call it insurance, assistance, or "42". It's worth having, because it is part of the good life. I realize that the whole idea of the "common good" is anathema to a Libertarian. That may explain why very few Libertarians are ever elected to public office.

He says he's not here to debate those issues. Apparently he only cares about getting us to concede his definition of the word "insurance". Why he thinks ACA is so terrible and what he'd rather see instead isn't something he's interested in discussing. Our bad, I guess. Silly us to assume that was the important thing.

Well if you came here just to debate your understanding of the definition of insurance, who cares? It doesn't sadden me. It's just a complete waste of time. Not interesting. Makes no difference to sick infants or cancer survivors whether we concede your definition of the word "insurance" or not. What matters is what delivery system we wind up having, what you think it should be, what I think it should be, what everyone thinks it should be. Not whether or not you think there's a semantic error involved.

For someone who is so convinced that ACA is terrible, I would have thought you'd want to discuss what would be better. If that's not the important thing to you your shallowness must know no bounds.

Under Fladen's logic every type of insurance is really assistance because they all presume a pre-existing condition. Insurance isn't just hedging about something that "might happen" in the future. It's also about spreading the risk when all odds tell you it will happen. Owning a home in Colorado is itself a pre-existing condition that will almost definitely result in exposure to loss, such as a hail storm. Car insurance presumes you own a car which will expose you to loss about every 18 years if you are average. http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2011/07/27/how-many-times-will-you-crash-your-car/. Life insurance presumes mortality, the ultimate pre-existing condition.

You've nailed it. Being human is the preexisting condition we all share that means we will not go through life unscathed by illness or injury and, yes, we're all going to die. So by Fladen reasoning, it's not just the very idea of insurance for sick babies and cancer survivors that's falling down laughing, cute smiley face funny. It's all just so silly. Case closed. Elliot wins. Now maybe he'll find another equally tedious, irrelevant game to play.